Recording Breaking Cold, Nowata -31, Bartlesville -28

The historical winter of 2011 has gone to new heights Thursday morning as temperatures drop{} well below zero and wind chills approach minus 50.

The record snows of the past two weeks accompanied by an extremely cold arctic air mass has pushed low temperatures to depths never before seen in Oklahoma.

According to the National Weather Service Office in Tulsa, Bartlesville and Pryor both dropped to -28 Thursday morning, making this the coldest temperature on record in Oklahoma.

Around that same time, Nowata reached -31 at the Mesonet weather gathering station.

The Nowata reading is unofficial{} pending further investigation of equipment and panel review.

The previous coldest temperature was -27 set back in 1930 in Watts and also in 1905 in Vinita.

As if not to be out done, wind chill values across northern and northeastern Oklahoma were even colder.

According to data from the Oklahoma Mesonet site, since midnight the coldest reported in the state is -47 in the north-central Oklahoma town of Medford. Cherokee, Oklahoma reported a wind chill of -40 this morning.